Go Into The Abyss – Episode 191

Episode 191 features Mara Ormond, who hails from eastern Maryland, where she, her husband and 5 year old daughter Lula have been for about a year. Mara has moved around a lot, but identifies DC as “where she’s from.” Mara is a leadership coach, helping people with workplace and life issues. She’s also an avid swimmer.

In this episode, we focus on the many new situations in Mara’s life and how she has to stay on top of making room for stuttering in her life.

We explore how harmful hiding stuttering can be to one’s self image and psyche, and even physical health, as Mara notes. We also talk about how spending so much time hiding hinders development on all counts – career, emotional and social.

When you don’t go through regular adolescent and young adult experiences, like active socializing and making friends, because of fear of stuttering, you miss out on becoming self actualized. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we’ve missed those opportunities until well into adulthood.

And we spend time dissecting shame – probably one of the core issues with stuttering. Mara shares an important “aha” moment – when she realized that “everyone feels shame.”

Listen in a to great conversation that once again dives deep into how complex stuttering really is. It was wonderful getting to know Mara better through this conversation.

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1 Response to "Go Into The Abyss – Episode 191"

Mara and Pam, I loved listening to this. I so identify with the feeling of being underdeveloped due to the habit of hiding and shrinking from life in the very years when important development is supposed to take place. I also have to remind myself to be self-compassionate. I encountered almost instant and many layers of grief when I first found the stuttering community. I cried a lot and for a long time. Layers of grief. Thanks so much for sharing.